we'll be the lionhearted
by Syrasha
Summary: "Mordin is the most celebrated geneticist and doctor in the galaxy, and Miranda brought me back to life from scraps. What makes you think there's any good reason that you have to die?"
1. Chapter 1

The darkness is devastating.

Shepard has been through a lot, but to die this way – suffocating in space rather than downed in a firefight – is unexpected. She wouldn't call it undignified, but after everything she's survived, it doesn't feel right.

Snippets of memory:

_The Normandy in pieces_

_Joker alone in the cockpit_

_Pulling at cords, wires, tubes_

_Floating_

_After everything, everyone – "I'm going to die alone."_

All the good she's done (and the bad), all the people she's helped (and killed), all the friends she's made (and boyfriends left to die), and Commander Shepard is going to die by herself in the far reaches of space on fake call about geth activity.

How unceremonious.

"Pardon me, human, but you seem to be lost."

Shepard can count on one hand the number of things that she knows about drell, but she has been alone in the dark for what feels like forever. She is in no place to be picky; she would even be happy to see a batarian that still blames her for what happened during the Skyllian Blitz.

Her body isn't like it used to be, but Shepard tries to smirk.

"That's one way to put it."

The drell is beautiful in that way that aliens are: foreign, colorful, unfamiliar no matter how familiar she is with another species.

"I wondered why I was supposed to come here. I think you are the reason." Shepard doesn't answer, and the drell continues. "Kalahira told me it would be different for you, that there are no oceans for humans. I do not understand why it is so dark."

"It's a joke," Shepard says, voice cracking and wavering after what could very well be millennia of disuse. "All I ever wanted was to go to space. What I have left is a starless void."

The drell hums noncommittally, changing tack.

"I'm sure you know how important you are. It is not only humans who revere the Hero of the Citadel. Perhaps that is why Arashu chose you."

"I don't know much about drell religion-"

The drell shakes her head, smiling. "There are few who do that do not practice themselves. It does not matter anyway, really; she expects nothing from you that you have not been doing already. Be a guardian, Shepard. Do your name proud."

She doesn't leave afterwards, and the darkness is still stifling, but Shepard is not alone in it.

The drell comes and goes as she pleases, or so it seems to Shepard, but realities are deceiving. Time has always slipped through Shepard's fingers, a silvery fish swimming almost-but-not-quite close enough to catch for herself. She's a good listener, the drell, but very rarely offers anything up about herself.

"Why?" Shepard asks herself.

The drell shrugs. "I am dead, Shepard. What does it matter?"

"So am I."

"For now."

The way she says it is alarming, but her affectations are still foreign and drell-like and neither of them have translators in this limbo that they're in. Their understanding is something unassisted by tech. When Shepard mentions her unease on the topic, the drell doesn't understand.

"Surely there are some things that technology can't explain."

Shepard snorts. "Tech got me this far. I scrapped on Earth until it got me into the Alliance."

She is not usually so loose-lipped, but really, what does she have to lose? The drell is never unkind, and Shepard has no secrets anymore; she has had no secrets since killing Saren, and even if she did, who would this dead drell tell?

If the drell asks questions, Shepard answers, and sometimes she shares just out of boredom. Anything is better than being alone in this vast expanse of arctic blackness. Time stretches on infinitely and passes instantly at the same time, and one day –

"What's your name?"

Shepard has asked before, and the drell always smiles coyly, deflecting elsewhere. This time is no different.

"Why does it matter?"

"Why does keeping it matter?" Stubborn, hotheaded Shepard shines through for just a brief moment, and it's enough to force a genuine grin from the drell.

"Your secrets disappear with me, Shepard, but when you wake up, only Arashu can guide you."

"You keep saying that I'll wake up, or that I'm only dead for now, but I feel like I've been gone a long time and the only friend that I've had in the interim won't even tell me her name."

Shepard has improved (some) in reading drell body language, and in human-speak, the drell's voice sounds almost teary when she speaks.

"Arashu truly has blessed me if you bestow upon me the honor of being called friend."

The drell flickers out into the black, and Shepard is alone.

Something is wrong. All of Shepard's nerves are firing at once, like they are trying to learn how to be alive again, and her drell has been absent for a time that feels longer than eternity. She has not cried since the Blitz, and she can't remember a time she cried before that, but this pain is so deep that she is tempted to. As her body pulls itself together (literally, muscles tethering together and neurons rewiring), Shepard tries to scream and nothing comes out.

It is still dark, but a brighter black than before, and from the void, Shepard hears a distinctly human voice say, "Reconstruction nearly complete."

An indeterminate amount of time passes.

"Shepard." The voice is her drell and the human voice, together, at the same time.

The next breath Shepard takes is excruciating, tearing from her throat to her core to her extremities.

"_Arashu protect you."_


	2. Chapter 2

Life has changed, since Irikah. Sleep eludes Thane, which is no surprise; he spends even his waking moments in a kind of slumber, so it has been a negligible loss. Briefly, Thane registers that Nos Astra is beautiful. People like Nassana Dantius don't deserve it, but people like Nassana Dantius are also the ones who made Illium into what it is today. The asari care _so much_ for their reputation, and Thane has never been sure why. Perhaps it is because they live such long lives.

Nassana has a cautious streak to match her ruthlessness. Over the weeks spent casing her, that much, at least, became clear. Thane is thankful that her headquarters are based on Illium and not somewhere a drell would stick out even more than he already does, but the planet's reputation for security is proven true for Nassana.

Mechs, mercs, underpaid salarians, all under the spell of Nassana's credits. The last, at least, inspires pity.

And he had heard the rumors, of course. Thane's network is not what it once was, but one would have to be living under a rock to not have heard that Commander Shepard was alive. It is another thing entirely to see a fearless soldier take off her helmet to talk to two salarians that Thane had just shoved into a storage unit for safety, revealing olive skin, long dark hair wound up tightly at the back of her head, a smattering of scars, and a lethal gaze.

Yes, Commander Shepard is alive, and she has just wandered into his hit. From Thane's vantage point in the air ducts, he can see and hear everything.

"I'm looking for someone. An assassin."

Her presence alone is unexpected but hearing her say that put things into perspective. This is not a coincidence. Shepard is looking for him.

She is flanked on either side by a female quarian and a human woman. They follow her lead when Shepard holsters her weapon, and Thane sees quickly why she removed her helmet. She puts the salarians at ease with a soft, reassuring smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Have you seen anyone but the mercs?"

"There was one-"

The salarian speaking is interrupted by the human on Shepard's right turning quickly and placing several bullets into a merc who had apparently survived the initial onslaught. Shepard snorts, a pig-like sound that Thane doesn't quite understand, and says, "Little dramatic, Miranda?"

The human named Miranda shrugs. "You didn't hack your way in here just to let a stray merc kill these people."

"She may be Cerberus, but she _does_ have style, Shepard," says the quarian.

"I wouldn't bring anyone around that _didn't_, Tali," Shepard scoffs good-naturedly, like Tali is a close friend.

"Anyway." Miranda gestures back towards the salarians.

"I don't know who he is, but there's someone else here. A drell. He killed a couple of the mercs that were giving us trouble and told us to stay here, lay low until things died down. He appeared and disappeared like nothing. No clue how he's getting around."

"Lines up with what we heard on the radio. He's probably in the ducts like they said." Tali's words must convince Shepard even if the evidence alone wouldn't, and she puts her helmet back on. Shepard steps aside, and Tali and Miranda mirror her.

"It should be safe as long as you aren't going up. Follow the carnage back; we've wiped out any merc reinforcements that might have come since your friend stopped through."

Salarians never move slow, but these two have a particular hustle to them. Shepard spends the briefest moments watching them go before starting off again, and Thane does the same.

Time to move.

* * *

Life has changed in the two years that Shepard was dead, but she's getting better. Despite initial impressions, Miranda's a hell of a companion, and she's managed to pick up Joker, Garrus, and Tali along with some other fresh blood along the way. Ashley hadn't been happy to see her, of course, but that's not surprising; they hadn't really been alright since Virmire anyway.

Tali had asked questions about the tattoo when she got it on the Citadel, the drell word for guardian that Liara told her was anglicized as _yelket_. It's not hard to explain away; "It's a dream I had, in between," suffices as an explanation. It spins itself down her left bicep. The tattooist had scoffed when she'd told him what she wanted, like Shepard was appropriating whatever culture was foreign and popular. Shepard's heart thrums with the memory of her nameless drell, of Arashu, of a mysticism that she doesn't quite understand.

Her brain still rattles around her skull, her arms feel loose in her shoulders, and she can breathe in deeper than she ever could before, but she is alive. She has got this far.

_Arashu protect you_.

The drell visits, sometimes, in sleep, but she never speaks. It's a little pathetic how when the salarians mention that the assassin is a drell, Shepard's existence almost grinds to a halt.

_It could be __**her**__ drell –_

No, they use the wrong pronouns. _He._

Shepard rolls her shoulder; Miranda built her back authentically, even if this body still feels foreign at the best of times, and the stiffness in the joint is something inherited from before she died. The salarians take off as fast as their legs can carry them, and Shepard doesn't know the assassin yet, but she does respect him. He was under no obligation to protect workers that Nassana wouldn't recognize if her life depended on it, but he did.

The assassin may not be a good man, but a bad man wouldn't do that either.

Her squad makeup is perhaps not the most well-rounded; she and Tali have almost the same training but from different backgrounds (Tali's a better programmer and Shepard's a better hacker), and Miranda's biotics are augmented with tech knowledge as well. It's worked so far, though. They tear through Eclipse shields, and more than once while surrounded by mechs Shepard is glad that she and Tali both are engineers.

She even catches Miranda chuckling to herself as the combat drones float along behind them.

If reuniting with Ashley was like a break-up, Tali acts as though she were never gone. Letting Veetor return to the fleet with her had also smoothed over what probably would have otherwise been an uncomfortable second meeting for Tali and Miranda.

It's almost to easy: pop the shield, command the drones to zap their armor, let Miranda's biotics do the rest. Their first real challenge is their last obstacle.

"How can asari _build_ like this?" Tali mumbles sourly under her breath. Shepard's inclined to agree.

When the tech isn't trying to blow them off the bridge, it's the wind. Two rocket turrets face them head-on, and the minimal coverage to protect them from that won't stop the mechs and mercs that Nassana is dispatching from putting bullets into their shields. Shepard hacks the rocket turret on the left, and both combat drones are dispatched in the only direction there is – forward.

Shepard moves like she's going to take her first steps out onto the bridge, but Miranda says, "Wait. They haven't put together that you've hacked the turret yet. It hasn't had a chance to fire."

Two Eclipse asari fall prey to the turret before the mercs put it together.

She and Tali take turns hacking the turrets, only ever one at a time. Any more than that, and the security protocols will run them both out of the system, locking down. As the turrets clear out threat after threat, Shepard reanalyzes. Soon, they'll make a break for it.

As the turret on the left takes it upon itself to swing around and destroy the turret on its right, Shepard motions Tali and Miranda rapidly forward. They sprint as fast as they can manage (and Miranda is _damn_ fast in those heels), the one LOKI mech remaining tossed over the bridge by Miranda's biotics. The mercs are waiting for them on the other end of the bridge except the two asari killed at the start, but it's a standard grind. Shepard prefers hacking to guns, but there's a certain fondness she has for her SMG that she hasn't quite been able to replicate anywhere else. Two salarians, a human, and another asari hold fast to weapons, and another asari is frantically tapping at her omnitool, presumably in an attempt to get the remaining turret on their side once again.

"You're not going to outhack me," Shepard says, staring down the four that are pointing weapons back at her while addressing the engineer. "So you five can get out of here, or you can die for someone who will probably be pleased that you won't be alive to collect your credits."

The human merc's eyes narrow through his visor, but the asari engineer says, "She's right. Unless you think you can kill them without the turret-" She cuts herself off, looking worriedly at Shepard.

"You can try." Miranda's tone is lazy, pistol aimed at the human and left hand glowing blue.

"No more paychecks if you don't live to take another job," Tali snorts.

The mercs take the hint, but the human lags just a little behind.

"I thought Cerberus was humans first," he says, pointing to the logo on Miranda's chest. "Didn't think you'd be palling around with _suit scum_."

When the human spits the final words, Shepard rolls her eyes and shoots him in the hand, shield still offline from the previous sustained turret-fire.

"Nice shot, Shepard." If his assessment of Cerberus bothered Miranda, she doesn't show it.

As the human limps away, Tali pulls up the blueprints of the building on her omnitool. "These diagrams are a little outdated, but if I had to guess, I would say Nassana is just up ahead."

"And hopefully our assassin as well," Miranda says, pistol lowered but not holstered.

* * *

Admittedly, Shepard and her party being around has made this job significantly easier. The mercs are so tied up in their head-on assault that they have no resources to spare for Thane, and Nassana is growing more agitated by the minute. Listening to what Shepard has to say is the least he can do for how simple she has made this job.

The door to Nassana's penthouse slides open and the few mercs remaining focus on the intrusion, oblivious to Thane right above their heads.

"Shepard?" Nassana is incredulous. "But – you're dead!"

Shepard doesn't bother with the helmet, and Thane doesn't miss the two drones shadowing her and Tali and the telltale glow of biotics in Miranda's hand. She shrugs. "I got better."

"Who hired you? I guess it's only fitting. I _did_ get you to kill my sister after all."

Shepard's helmet is still on, but the boredom oozes from her suit. "Pretty self-absorbed, Nassana. I'm not here for you."

Nassana scoffs. "I'm not naïve, Shepard. I'm one of the highest priority targets on Illium. You can't expect me to believe-"

Thane drops from the ducts, snapping the neck of one merc and doing the same to the next before shooting the last.

"You-" Nassana manages in her last breath before Thane buries his pistol in her stomach, pulling the trigger.

Shepard crosses her arms and watches as Thane carries out last rites. Miranda, in particular, looks bewildered at his silent prayer, and it's difficult to say what Tali thinks. It's hard to gauge quarian emotion at the best of times if they aren't speaking.

"Hello?" Shepard breaks the brief silence as his prayer ends.

"Prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken," Thane says, opening his eyes to look at Shepard and her party.

"So you say it yourself. She wasn't a good person," Shepard says. "I know you agree. You wouldn't have helped those salarians if you thought what she was doing was justified. Do you really think Kalahira would want anything to do with Nassana Dantius?"

At the mention of Kalahira, Thane gives Shepard his full attention. "I confess, most drell these days follow the Enkindlers, or even asari philosophy. To hear a human speak of Kalahira is… unexpected. Still, it does not change facts. The prayer is not for her. It is for me."

No, he is not her nameless drell, but she likes him no less, a mixture of grace and lethality that is positively alluring. He doesn't even flinch when she mentions the Collectors. She can't stop herself from asking if his illness will impact the mission, and he takes no offense.

"My arm is yours, Shepard. No charge."

Succinct, to the point. He's made a phenomenal, if somewhat broody, impression. Thane Krios is impressive, at least. They walk their way back down the tower.

"For the sake of full disclosure," Tali says, looking to Shepard for approval for what she's about to say. When Shepard nods, she finishes, "We _are_ on a Cerberus ship. The crew has been surprisingly welcome, even to me, but it is something worth mentioning. Cerberus has done some terrible things. Don't want there to be a conflict of interest, or for you to expect this to be more welcoming of aliens than it is."

Miranda waves a hand dismissively, and Thane notices, eyes darting between her and Tali before back to Shepard.

"My arm is Shepard's," he repeats, and that's the end of that.

* * *

Jacob hates him, which Shepard supposes she should have seen coming, though she struggles to see an Alliance defector as any better. When Jacob exits the debriefing room, she exhales loudly through her nose, Thane still so quiet that she barely remembers he's there.

"Thank you, Shepard." It is all she can do not to jump out of her skin when he speaks. "I look forward to a worthwhile cause. May I ask where I can put my things?"

"Ah," Shepard says, pausing briefly. "This is as good a time as any to introduce you to EDI."

EDI appears on command.

"Yes, Shepard. A pleasure to meet you, Sere Krios."

"Likewise. If at all possible, I would prefer something with an arid climate."

"Of course. I think you will find life support most suitable. It is the driest place on board."

"Thank you." Thane bows his head at the AI's projection.

"My pleasure," EDI says. "You will find life support on Deck Three."

EDI blinks out, and Thane affords the same bow of his head to Shepard before walking out the door.

A little broody, perhaps, but Shepard thinks he'll slot in fine. Just maybe not with Jacob. Not right away.


	3. Chapter 3

Religion has never been something too close to Shepard's heart. There wasn't room for it back home in Los Angeles; every second after twelve years old, after not having a parent anymore, was consumed by surviving. Her mother had had something, something traditional, _Đạo Mẫu_, but Shepard doesn't remember most of it except that at the time she died that it had felt ironic. All that time worshipping a mother goddess, and it couldn't even save her _own_ mother.

Needless to say, if anyone had told her that she'd have at least a passing interest in drell spirituality at some point before she died, Shepard wouldn't have believed them. In fact, she might have outright laughed in their faces. And yet, she has a few books on the subject scattered around her cabin: one on her desk, one on the nightstand next to her bed, and the last in the trash bin because it took Shepard approximately thirty-seven seconds to realize that it was fetishizing bullshit.

All these aliens. It's the one thing that growing up on Earth didn't really give her a frame of reference for. Turians, sure – humans hate turians, turians hate humans, even though Shepard got over it in time to see that Garrus would be an invaluable addition to the Normandy. Quarians? Not a clue – probably thieves, though (even thinking it has Shepard tasting bile in her mouth, the concept of _quarian_ inextricable from _Tali _in her mind). Asari are beautiful, erotic, their own understanding of being monogendered be damned because if they can be sexualized as lesbians then why _wouldn't_ we do that?

Shepard sighs, the door sliding shut behind her as she exits her cabin for the elevator down to the other decks. Earth kids taught her krogan are mean, violent, and they were mostly right on that one, even if Grunt and Wrex do have a little more nuance than that, and salarians just _never stop talking_. That one's true, too, though she learned it as a bad thing and it's actually one of the most endearing things _about_ Mordin.

Drell? Green, mostly.

The vids, the history books, they all act like she was an orphan from the day she was born, raised on the streets from infancy. The truth isn't quite as romantic. By the time she was orphaned, Shepard had already been menstruating for about six months.

Shepard's stomach groans like it knows she's on her way to the mess hall. She had hoped that the food might be better with Cerberus than the standard Alliance fare, but thus far it's about the same. Food is her guilty pleasure. Every good memory Shepard has with her mother is at least food-adjacent, and every cred-splurge was on ingredients when she had some place she could cook or on the best takeout she could afford when she couldn't make food herself.

It's early in the morning or late at night; Shepard can't decide which, and it doesn't really matter except that it means that it should be quiet on the ship. She thinks she slept, but it isn't that important. Since the cybernetics, sleep has been a luxury rather than a necessity. A few hours a night is enough.

Food is a different story.

The mess is deserted, like Shepard had predicted, and the soft smile that comes over her face is real. The ingredients are not good, but she has time to play for a couple of minutes. It'll do. The bread is wrong, the mayonnaise is wrong, and the vegetables are wrong, but it'll do. At least the pork is almost right.

The sandwich comes together like a masterpiece made from garbage, so low-quality are the ingredients. Shepard cuts it in half, a habit her mother instilled that she's never managed to shake. It isn't good, but at least the first bite doesn't make her grimace, even if Shepard knows her mother would turn up her nose at it in a heartbeat.

* * *

It hadn't taken him long to settle in, and the remainder of the time since has done so has been spent in meditations. He has no engagements as far as he knows so far; Shepard will spend more time on Illium tomorrow, and though he does not ask why, she shares that she is recruiting a justicar. She is not speaking to him specifically; the entire crew is assembled, and it is more people than Thane has been around at once in a _very_ long time as well as being much more diverse than he expected. The humans outnumber everyone, but Tali's words had left him believing that they would be close to the only aliens on board.

No, in addition to himself and Tali, there is also a turian, a krogan, and a salarian, and if Shepard's mission is to recruit a justicar, they will also soon have an asari in their midst.

There is a quiet rattling from the main part of the ship, something not affiliated with the Normandy's processes, like someone used to rifling through cabinets is trying and failing to do it quietly. If he had to guess, it is one of the humans on board, based on their gait. Something pleasant, if spiced too heavily, reaches his nose, and in a matter of minutes the smell is gone again as he hears the elevator slide open and _whir_ upwards.

So chances are that it's Shepard. The Normandy runs on the absolute minimum at night (or what passes for night in space), EDI fully capable of running almost all processes on her own even while shackled, and Thane can't imagine that the crew are permitted to take food with them to work. The only place upwards that someone wouldn't be working is Shepard's cabin.

When Thane looks at the clock, it is almost time to wake, but instinct tells him that Shepard has not slept.

Shepard takes Garrus and Miranda planet-side for the justicar. After seeing her chemistry with Tali'Zorah in action, Thane is surprised to see her left out of the party. For her part, Tali seems unfazed, wishing Shepard and Miranda good luck and giving Garrus a friendly rap on the breastplate as farewell.

_She places a hand on my chest, smiling – "You know your heart is with me." _

_Laughter. "You know that isn't where the heart __**is**__, siha?" _

_Her hand moves accordingly. "Better?" _

"_Better."_

"Krios? Thane?"

Thane has not spoken the memory, but it has consumed him no less. Luckily, Tali has not been trying to get his attention for long.

"Yes?"

There is a smile in Tali's voice. "I just asked if you might be able to help with something in engineering."

"I am happy to assist, but you should know that I am no tech."

Tali waves him off. "Please. I'm tech enough for the both of us. It's your biotics I need, if you'll indulge me."

"Gladly."

They descend to the engineering level. Thane lets Tali lead the way because she has been aboard longer, though he soon finds out it's not by much.

"I'm glad you joined us. I found out Shepard was alive a month or so ago, but I joined the crew just before you. The more people on this ship that aren't Cerberus, the better. That's actually why I wanted your help."

She would be foolish to trust him already, but she trusts that he isn't Cerberus.

"What exactly can I assist you with?"

"I'm glad you asked."

It's simple enough. She wasn't joking about needing his biotics; Tali slides into spaces she could never reach alone, assisted by Thane's biotics pulling the ship apart just enough for her to fit but not enough that he can't put the pieces back where he found them.

"Do I want to know what you did?" Thane finally asks as Tali puts the finishing touches on her last foray into the ship's interior.

Under the face mask, he's sure Tali is smiling. "Just… countermeasures. In case the Cerberus gambit doesn't work out all for the best. I checked with Shepard first."

Thane doesn't press her, but after a moment, she says, "I just wanted to take a look at some of the hardware tied up in the weapons targeting systems. Everything seems above board for the most part, but I don't think being cautious is a bad idea."

Thane can appreciate Tali's measured, vigilant approach. They ascend again, past Donnelly and Daniels, who don't seem to dislike Tali but can't quite decide what they think of her yet and know even less what to do with a drell.

"Thanks, Thane. I owe you one."

"The pleasure is mine."

The sound of the airlock activating interrupts them, and Tali says, "Shore party's back."

Justicars demand respect without ever saying a word about it, and this one is no different even as she defers to Shepard's authority, letting her walk ahead. She walks in step with Garrus and Miranda.

"Tali, Thane." Shepard nods in the direction of the debrief room. "EDI-"

"I have already alerted the others to assemble."

Shepard's walk is brisk; she's tall for a human, the same height as Miranda without the heeled shoes. She doesn't look behind her to check that Tali and Thane follow, a sure sign of a leader used to being listened to. From the back, Thane can even see that the way she wears her hair is coming apart, strands of it falling loose from the tight knot that Shepard normally has it in.

Being included in the debrief is surprising, but only for a moment; after all, most of the crew had been present when he himself had come on board.

The room is stuffed to the brim. Thane has seen all of them on the ship in the twenty-four hours he has been aboard it, mostly when he himself became part of the crew, and he even knows most of their names. The people on Shepard's crew are infamous, and they were even before joining her on this suicide mission.

"Thane Krios." Nothing has startled Thane for years, and Mordin Solus's approach is no different, but Tali jumps instead. "Happy to be working with you. Unfortunate to hear about your Kepral's. Would love to run tests, biopsies, bloodwork, with your consent, of course-"

"Mordin." Thane doesn't have to answer because Shepard cuts off the conversation short before he has to. "You'll have time after. I just wanted to gather everyone for a few minutes to meet Samara."

Samara takes a step forward when Shepard says her name, scanning the room and nodding greetings, posture stiff and proper.

"In addition," Shepard continues, "We have the team I want, the team I _need_. If any of you have personal business that requires attention, please fill me in as you see fit. We all know that we might not come back from the end of this alive. I don't want anyone to have regrets." A pallor falls over the room, and Shepard steps back from the conference table. "Dismissed."

The crew filters out. "Was serious about biopsies," Mordin says in passing. "Stop by the tech lab at your earliest convenience. Look forward to getting to know drell physiology better."

Jacob follows Mordin out, Tali and Garrus chatting amicably with the thief Kasumi Goto close behind, and the rest of the crew after. It is force of habit to be the last to leave a room, but Thane has never turned his back on anyone if he can help it. This may be his team, but there are plenty of skilled killers on it (even if none are quite so skilled as he).

* * *

"EDI, arrange for Samara to settle in on the observation deck," Shepard says to the holographic projection.

"Thank you, Shepard." Samara's words resonate eerily in Shepard's head. It isn't intentional, she doesn't think, but only asari can make her feel so _young_. Liara had been the exception to the rule.

Samara heads on her way, Thane the final person remaining, though not in a way that makes her believe that he is waiting to speak with her.

In answer to her unspoken question, Thane says, "I have been on my own for some time. I find it difficult to let people exit a room behind me."

Shepard smirks. "Reasonable, though I assure you we're all on the same team."

"Of course, Shepard." Thane dips his head.

She walks out next to him, instead; there's no need to try his patience just for her own amusement. As she gets ready to part ways with him, he surprises her.

"What food did you make early this morning in the mess hall? I don't know much about human cuisine."

Shepard's eyes narrow. "How did you know I was in the mess?"

Thane shrugs. "Process of elimination. Whoever it was took their meal upstairs. You are the only person on board who might take a meal on the upper levels."

Well. He's not the best assassin in the galaxy for no reason.

"Just a sandwich I used to eat growing up. _Bánh mì thịt nướng_."

Thane furrows his brow (is it even really a brow?). Her drell had often done something similar. "I apologize, Shepard. My translator does not know what to make of that."

Shepard snorts. "It's just a grilled pork sandwich with vegetables. I should've known better than to use the 'technical' term."

"Hmm." Thane doesn't offer anything up more than that until they part ways. "Shepard."

"Thane."

For whatever reason, the encounter is haunting, perhaps because she had been so dismissive of the food itself. Nothing about her father was worthwhile, but to be so flippant over something her mother had taught her leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

There is always something to be done, though, even long after the crew has called it a night: another report, exercise, someone to mourn. How can she sleep? Shepard buries herself in a datapad, musing briefly on how it's still called "paperwork" when paper has long been outdated, but she can't shake the conversation with Thane. _"It's just a grilled pork sandwich with vegetables."_ Her mother would be ashamed, and Shepard doesn't think that too often anymore, not after clawing her way out of the slums with nothing but a fourth rate omnitool.

She also thinks that if her mother was alive today, she would want her to eat a _much _better _bánh mì thịt nướng_ than the sad excuse she threw together early that morning. Shepard tosses the datapad next to one of her two books on drell mysticism only for it to go skittering across the bed. Cringing, she picks it up a little more delicately. Shepard hasn't quite figured out the strength of this body yet in more everyday circumstances.

The ship sleeps, but Shepard doesn't need a crew to set a course for the Citadel. EDI confirms their course.

"Can you also let Thane and Tali know that they're going to be my ground party?"

"Of course, Shepard."

Shepard pushes off from the galaxy map and stretches, bones and joints cracking. It's a good reminder that she's still human, and that's enough to convince her that maybe a few hours of sleep might be worth her while if she can manage it.

* * *

Thane has perfect memory, but perfect memory doesn't give him the ability to search for something on the extranet that he so clearly didn't understand. It is a fruitless effort, and he probably would have been awake anyway, but it does mean that he isn't asleep when EDI says, "Excuse the interruption, Thane. Shepard has requested that you accompany her once the Normandy reaches the Citadel."

"Understood, EDI. Thank you."

"My pleasure."


	4. Chapter 4

Jacob does not like that Shepard has chosen him for her ground party, but Miranda seems to have no such qualms. It is not an inference; their loudly whispered conversation may as well have been broadcast over loudspeaker.

"Jacob. Any issues you have about crew can be taken up with Shepard or the Illusive Man. It is outside my purview."

There is really nothing to dislike about Jacob. If anything, his unease actually instills respect in Thane. It stems from Jacob's principles, and far be it from Thane to fault a person that. That would be more hypocritical than anything in his life so far.

Shepard and Garrus fall into step easily with one another, like only those who have killed together can. It has been a long time since Thane has worked with others, so this is unfamiliar, but not unknown. He will always prefer to be on his own, but he will adapt. He always has.

Garrus seems uneasy from the moment the Normandy docks on the Citadel, which is rather unlike him in the (admittedly brief) time that Thane has known him. He is closer to Shepard than probably anyone else on the ship except perhaps Tali; even Joker falls short in that regard, despite their shared humanity. Today he acts different, even if he tries not to let it show. Turians are not as sly with their emotions as they think they are if one knows what to look for.

"May I ask our objective on the Citadel, Commander?" Thane asks as they clear customs and Shepard gives a nod to Captain Bailey who responds with a lazy wave to both her and Garrus.

"Being my escort isn't enough of one, Krios?" Shepard asks, tone dry, and most of Thane's experience with humans comes from killing them. He must be silent just a second too long, because Shepard cracks a grin at him over her shoulder. "Kidding, Thane. Believe it or not, you got to me a little yesterday. I didn't come back from the dead to eat shitty food."

"You need two snipers for grocery shopping?" Garrus laughs, a little color back in his voice despite the fact that he is still holding an infinite amount of tension in his back.

"I'm a _very_ valuable asset to Cerberus," Shepard drawls. "Imagine if I managed to get myself killed a second time." Shepard actually laughs at the thought. How much would it cost to bring her back yet _another_ time?

"That's actually been your end goal this whole time, I think. What better way to stick it to Cerberus than dying on their watch?"

Yes, that sounds more like the Garrus from the past couple of days.

"So, to answer your question," Shepard says, returning her attention to Thane, "I guess we three highly-trained killers are going grocery shopping. Garrus and I have an errand to attend to as well, but you're free to return to the Normandy or spend some time on the Citadel if you like when we do."

It's as confusing as anything else a human has ever said to him. It almost feels like a test, but at least the first half of what Shepard says is a truth. She knows her way around the Citadel almost half as well as Thane does, though she admits to Garrus she has no idea what dextro food to stock up on.

"I'm the only person on board that's dextro other than Tali. I'm happy to eat rations," Garrus says.

Shepard frowns. "Well, I don't know what drell-"

"Also levo," Thane interrupts, and Shepard looks at him sideways.

"_Well_," Shepard starts again, not quite huffing. "I might be satisfied with _you_ eating rations, but Tali deserves better."

"She usually eats that paste the Migrant Fleet sends with them on pilgrimage anyway-"

Shepard doesn't wait for Garrus to finish his sentence before walking forward into a turian store. Garrus shakes his head and says to Thane, "Welcome to the crew."

* * *

The turian at the counter looks confused when she asks about dextro cuisine, and in retrospect, the Cerberus logo plastered on her armor is probably part of it. She warms up as much as turians ever do when Garrus walks in behind her with Thane.

"Officer Vakarian," she says, and Garrus rubs the back of his neck.

"It's been a long time since I've been with C-Sec, Alcidia." His voice is sheepish, but Alcidia doesn't seem convinced.

"Whatever you say, officer," she says absently, talons hard at work on her omnitool. "Anything in the store, you can have my employee discount."

"Thank you," Shepard says, "Any recommendations for quarians?"

Alcidia makes a face that Shepard can best describe as a grimace. "Mostly, they're vegan because livestock just aren't sustainable in the Fleet. I have a few pre-made meals that are purified for quarians, but it's all paste, as you can imagine."

It's not what Shepard wants to hear, but to say she expected something otherwise would be disingenuous. She buys out the terminal, and Garrus's eyes bulge in disbelief.

"Shepard, I am just _one_ turian-"

She waves him off and smirks at Thane. "Don't worry; the Illusive Man is buying."

No, Thane is not her drell, his face too impassive at a joke that manages to get a chuckle out of this new, jaded Garrus.

"Anyway," she continues as they exit the store, "You two must have been close, _Officer Vakarian_."

Garrus snorts, trying for blasé but only achieving uncomfortable. "Not quite. I stopped someone from robbing her store once."

"If you say so. I still say you missed an opportunity with that Dr. Michel anyway." Shepard rolls her eyes before turning back to the matter at hand, having managed to embarrass Garrus out of his melancholic brooding. "Food preferences, Thane? I know less about drell food than I know about quarian food. Where should we go?"

"Food is a means to an end for me, Shepard. If it gives me energy, it is enough."

"How utilitarian of you," Shepard says, but doesn't push the matter. She visits asari and human merchants and cleans them out as well. Cerberus pays much better than the Alliance, but her joke about the Illusive Man comes from truth. Anything she wants for the crew comes from a credit chit stamped with the Cerberus symbol.

"You bought as much for the one turian on board as you did for all the humans," Garrus says dryly.

"You keep _repeating _yourself, Garrus, are you sure that you're feeling alright?"

Garrus holds up both hands in surrender, and Shepard is surprised that he is acting so close to the Garrus who came with her on the SR-1 considering what they're about to do.

"Everything's back on the ship," Shepard says, "Ready, Garrus?" When Garrus nods, she continues, "We'll meet you back on the Normandy, Thane. You're free to your own devices until then; we should be finished in a couple of hours."

Thane nods, and this isn't _test,_ per se, but if she were in Thane's shoes, there would be no way that she didn't follow to see what was going on.

Still, Thane fades into the crowd dutifully back towards the docks. If he's as good of an assassin as Shepard thinks he is (as good of an assassin as the Illusive Man said he was), she'll never know if he's followed them or not.

It had been a week ago that Harkin had set up this trap for Sidonis. Shepard doesn't quite regret it yet, but it's really doing a number on Garrus.

"Let's do this, Shepard." Garrus's voice is steelier than usual, back to how he'd acted earlier this morning, flecked with iron. It grinds against Shepard's ears, unbidden memories of Los Angeles pricking at her edges. She gruffly acquiesces, the scars on her face burning like they're more wound than discoloration. This body is a gift and she knows it, but it comes with strings. Some of them are shaped like the Illusive Man (like Miranda (too beautiful, too smart, too strong), like Jacob (too familiar, too loyal, too steady)), some of them are shaped like accidentally leaving divots in the mess hall table from slamming down a mug harder than she ever knew was possible.

This Garrus is not the Garrus that Shepard knew in the fight against Saren, but she's been gone a long time. Her body reminds her of that every chance that it gets.

Garrus drives the skycar. She's just fine getting around the Citadel, but he still knows better, knows how to get places faster and quieter.

"You know that this won't bring them back," Shepard says, not a question. He doesn't react except to grip the controls of the skycar that much harder.

When they're at the vantage point Garrus wants, where he can see Sidonis, Garrus has her look down the scope to identify him.

"That's our guy, Shepard."

"You're sure about this?" she asks, scars throbbing.

"It's not about being sure. It's about _justice._"

Garrus's blue eyes go dark, and it's hard to argue with him.

* * *

It is not his job to follow them if they do not want to be followed, but Shepard had explicitly stated that this time was his to do with what he wished. Perhaps he is being naïve, but Thane doesn't believe that Garrus would have packed a _second_ sniper rifle if their errand was not combat related.

The scaffolding that spans the entirety of the Citadel is a necessary evil; a space station always requires repairs and storage, and if assassins were to make use of them occasionally, who would ever know the wiser?

They take a skycar. By the time that Thane catches up, they are in position (for whatever it is that they're doing) at the Orbital Lounge, Shepard on the ground and Garrus like he has eyes on a mark from above her. Shepard is talking to an agitated turian and Garrus is –

_This hit is almost too easy. The thought is gone as quick as it comes._

_The salarian stands at a desk, oblivious. The laser on my rifle rests squarely on the back of his head, and suddenly it is on the forehead of a drell woman, beautiful in her obstinance._

"_Security!"_

_She shouts for reinforcements and –_

"Listen," Shepard says, hands up in the universal sign of surrender, "I'm a friend of Garrus's."

The turian moves like he wants to run. "Garrus is _here?_"

"I would _not_ move if I were you," Shepard snarls. "I'm the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head."

"Look, I- I didn't have a choice! You think that I don't deal with it every day? That I don't see them every night? I haven't slept since."

Shepard pauses. Thane's sure that Garrus is in her ear.

"Let you take the shot? _Look _at him, Garrus." Another pause. "He doesn't deserve to live? Does this look like a turian who's doing much living?"

It's quiet, Shepard and the turian not moving. When Shepard finally takes a step back, putting the turian into line of fire, he looks like he wants to cling to her. "He's letting you go, Sidonis. Make something of it. And don't fuck up again. I won't be able to stop him, and I won't want to."

"Tell him… Tell him I'm sorry."

* * *

Garrus is mad at her, but it's temporary, just like it had been when she'd wanted to take Dr. Saleon into custody. Granted, that time his target had died anyway, but he had _not_ been pleased that Wrex's biotics had dealt the final blow. Garrus's temper is actually the least of her concerns at the moment; he'll see reason. He always does.

No, Shepard wonders often if things would have been different if Miranda had been able to resurrect her on the terms that she had wanted. Waking up too early has seemed mostly a nuisance; all of her major functions are completely intact. Her body never fails her in combat, and she remembers everything from before she died.

Now, as she struggles to type into her omnitool late at night in the mess, Shepard wonders once again if these are just the limitations of the Lazarus Project or if a few more days would have left her completely in control of all her faculties. The joints in her fingers feel stiff, like she's broken them and never done the proper therapy to have this particular motion back. It is the most difficult three sentences she has ever written.

Shepard places her creation on a plate, sets it on the spotless floor outside of life support, raps on the door twice, and ascends to her own cabin, curling and uncurling her fingers as best she can the whole way up. The sandwich tastes much better this time, every bite a flood of the best that Los Angeles ever had to offer, the only parts she ever misses.

* * *

In the dead of night as it is, Shepard might think she's being quiet, but she isn't. She is clearly as sleepless as him, and he hears her footsteps lead right up to his door before she knocks twice and leaves.

He thinks nothing of it. Perhaps it's some strange human custom, a way of acknowledging the fact that sleep eludes him as it does her.

His omnitool blinks.

_Thane,_

_I feel I undersold it. __Bánh mì thịt nướng, for your judgment, now that I know you're levo. Curbside delivery, even._

_Shepard_

He opens the door in understanding to find her dish at his feet.

It explodes with flavor, too much to compare to any drell or hanar dish he's ever eaten, but once he gets past the bursting of sensation, the gesture is easy to appreciate.

_Shepard,_

_I can see why you would struggle to simplify something like this as simply fuel for the body._

_Thane_

He exits life support, cleans the dish, and places it back where it belongs.

* * *

Shepard stares at the stars from her bed, ignoring the stiffness in her fingers, the pounding in her scars, and the chill that overtakes her every time she remembers the bleak blackness of space dotted so cruelly with specks of light. It's psychosomatic, she knows, because this body is hers and she is in control, but every time she shuts her eyes it is all she can do to not imagine the Cerberus wiring pulsing under her skin.


	5. Chapter 5

Learning about Shepard is not difficult. There is no finesse to an extranet search for _Commander Shepard_. Whether the information is credible is another story, but this scratches the surface nicely.

Alliance News Network has a good reputation in the galaxy, and the production quality is well in line.

Their logo plays out across the screen and a voiceover follows.

"_A soldier never stops being a soldier. But what __**makes**__ a soldier?"_

The voice is a man's, and as the logo fades out, Shepard and the man who Thane assumes was responsible for the voiceover come into the picture. When he opens his mouth, he proves Thane correct. "_My name is Angel Gonzalez Garcia. If you're watching at home, you already know my guest. Lieutenant Evangeline Shepard was only 29 when she almost single-handedly repelled the assault on Elysium that is now called the Skyllian Blitz."_

Shepard noticeably winces when the interviewer says her full name, and Thane does think briefly that she does not seem like an _Evangeline_ at all. Her hair is shorter here, cropped almost up to her ears; it would be impossible for her to wear it up like she does now. The scars that make a lattice of her face are also missing, and she has wrinkles around the eyes that she doesn't have anymore.

"_Lieutenant, thank you for joining me."_

"_My pleasure, Angel."_

It looks like anything but a pleasure. Shepard's body is stiff, and she moves like she wants to pull her left leg up under her in that pliable way humans do, stopping herself at the last moment.

"_We all know the story of Elysium, how your actions earned you the Star of Terra. What I want to talk to you about today is a little different. How did you become the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz?"_

Shepard rubs the back of her neck in an action that Thane thinks can be pegged as sheepish. "_You'll have to be a little more specific than that?_"

Angel holds his hands out as if to say _no problem_. "_Let's start at the beginning. Earth, the Tenth Street Reds, and a girl who was much too good with an omnitool."_

Shepard grins, all teeth, a predator even if Angel hasn't realized it. "_Sure. That's the beginning._"

Thane pauses the vid to punctuate a knock on life support's door. Tali lets herself in, but Thane finds it endearing more than irritating; this ship is, after all, much more her home than his, given her time on its first incarnation.

"Thane, we have a situation." Tali's words are serious, but her tone betrays her. There is a laugh bubbling right below the surface, even though Thane can't see it behind the mask.

"We do?" he asks, willing to play along for the moment.

"They bet me that I couldn't get you to come and play Skyllian Five."

"They?"

"Garrus and Joker. Just a couple games of cards and I'll win. Shepard and Jacob are playing, too."

"_I'm no good at cards. Can we try the roulette table?"_

_She is more radiant than I've ever seen her except for the day that she stepped in front of a mark that didn't deserve to live._

Irikah flickers in and out of his head whether Thane wants her to or not, and he shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Tali. Perhaps next time?"

"Sure." She tries hard not to sound disappointed and almost succeeds; something in Thane's chest twinges. Tali turns to leave, but she glances back to get a better look at the vid he'd been watching.

"All the ANN stuff about Shepard is basically propaganda, if you ask her. The only way you'll get the real story is from Shepard herself."

The door slides shut behind Tali, and Thane hums noncommittally, starting the vid again.

"_It's not like I was born an omnitool prodigy. I had a knack for it, sure, but I didn't start off with grand theft skyauto."_

"_Looking at you now," _says Angel, "_It's very difficult to think of you as a petty criminal."_

Shepard smirks again and uncrosses her legs, leaning forward on her elbows. _"I get that a lot."_

* * *

Tali returns from life support with her shoulders not _quite_ slumped, but Shepard can see that she certainly hasn't gotten her way.

"If you wanted him to play with us, mentioning Jacob was a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot," Joker says offhandedly, dealing as he talks.

"I don't know much about drell, but if I had to guess, I would say Jacob's distaste is one-sided." Garrus looks at Jacob almost-but-not-quite pointedly.

Jacob doesn't even bother looking cowed. "Don't like guns for hire."

"Thank the spirits Shepard's never taken you down to Omega," Garrus quips.

Shepard rolls her eyes. "Are we going to play or are we going to talk? We might as well get this over with. Tali's about to clean us all out."

Garrus, Joker, and Tali all protest, and all it takes is the three of them opening their mouths for Shepard to smile.

"We _all_ know that's a _damn_ lie, Shepard. You leave us with nothing every time. Only reason we keep inviting you is because you're the commander," Joker says, sparing a glance at Miranda as she walks from the elevator towards her office.

"Oh, you'd treat me differently if I wasn't your superior officer?" Shepard shakes her head, mock-hurt. "Cerberus should have left you grounded."

"Unfortunately, the pool of qualified candidates was very small," Miranda says in passing. "If we'd had another choice, we would have considered it."

Joker's jaw drops at that, and it's enough to make Tali laugh and Garrus chuckle, even coaxing a smile from Shepard.

"You know what? Find another pilot willing to put up with _that_ thing, and I'll consider resigning my position." Joker gestures vaguely upwards into the space above them that everyone considers EDI an inhabitant of, and Miranda pauses at the door to her office.

"Unfortunately, we're well past that. You weren't quite on Shepard's level, but you're still an investment."

Miranda disappears into her office, and Joker grumbles.

"I kind of like her, for being Cerberus and all," Tali says, glancing at Jacob before saying, "No offense."

"None taken," Jacob shrugs. "She's what got me to join Cerberus, really, so I can empathize."

"If Cerberus was more like you and Miranda and a little less like the Illusive Man, I'd be a little more inclined to believe in their good intentions," Garrus says, folding.

Joker snorts. "Say that to Jack."

"Didn't say it was perfect. Just that I'd be interested in listening a little harder, even if it's hard to forget all those experiments."

Tali shudders across the table, and a chill winds its way down Shepard's own spine.

"Hard to believe I ended up _being_ one of the experiments," Shepard says, sweetening the pot a little, and there is a just-too-long lull in the conversation that hangs in the air long after they resume talking.

She cleans them out. It's too easy. It always is. Garrus is all fluttering mandibles, Tali has twitchy fingers, Joker can't shut up. It takes her a couple of hands to figure Jacob out, but she can always read a mark. She's been pulling cons for years.

"They don't pay vigilantes enough for me to get slaughtered like this," Garrus finally says, pushing away from the table.

Tali shakes her head. "We know better. Why do we keep doing this?"

"This time I'm going to say it was Jacob's fault," Joker says with an accusatory gaze. "We tried to warn you. We really did."

Jacob's hands are up in the air. "I've learned my lesson."

They disperse. They're a good crew, really, even if the ship isn't flying Alliance colors, but it's not the same. Ashley isn't speaking to her anymore, Liara has more than moved on, and Wrex is leading a krogan renaissance.

There's no need to think about Kaidan, but she does anyway. The lump in her throat won't lead to tears, but it lodges itself there uncomfortably regardless.

They're a good crew. Miranda is Cerberus through and through, but she's really just looking for something to believe in. Jacob followed Miranda, and who could blame him?

Even at her most unstable, Jack is an asset unlike anything else. Kasumi would have been a devastating partner back on Earth. Grunt is probably the closest thing to a son that Shepard is ever going to get. Zaeed's _as tough as_ a krogan, despite what Grunt and Wrex might thing. Samara and Mordin are just alien enough that Shepard won't ever get too comfortable. Tali and Garrus are family, plain and simple. And Thane, well –

Shepard glances in life support's direction.

Thane's a wildcard.

For the first time in a long time, Shepard feels tired.

* * *

The vid is unenlightening. He hadn't thought Tali had been wrong or lying, but Thane had hoped he would be able to pick something up from the vid anyway. He isn't sure why, but mostly the parallels to Irikah are staggering. She haunts him every waking moment; it is only fair that Shepard would remind him of her as well. The numbness of sleep makes it a bearable penance.

"_I pulled myself off the streets when I was eighteen, enlisted with the Alliance. The rest is history."_ There's an irritation in Shepard's eyes that hadn't been there previously, and Thane can't figure out why.

Angel nods anyway, either oblivious or apathetic about Shepard's annoyance. _"The rest is history indeed."_ He looks into the camera and Shepard mirrors him with a tired half-smile. "_I'm Angel Gonzalez Garcia of Alliance News Network with Lieutenant Evangeline Shepard. Thanks for tuning in."_

The vid cuts off, but not before Shepard closes her eyes and breathes in deeply.

It did not answer many questions. Tali had absolutely been right.

He exits onto the main deck, searching for a glass of water and not much else. EDI had been correct that life support was good fit for its aridity, but it was also very close to water. Millions of years of evolution in a desert have not allowed him to forget its importance, even if Kahje was never short.

Shepard has been near-silent; in fact, if she had not moved when his door opened, Thane might never have known she was there.

"Thane," Shepard says, eyes bleary.

"Shepard," he nods. "I apologize. Did I disturb you?"

"Technically, yes," Shepard says, rubbing one eye, "But only because I dozed off in the mess. What time is it?"

"Not late enough for you to make a sandwich," Thane says, and Shepard looks at him, confused, before smiling.

"Look at that. You _can_ make a joke. Jacob owes me ten credits." She leans back and stretches her arms over her head, leaving her too-soft human stomach exposed, covered only by the flimsy crewman's uniform that she wears when not fully dressed in armor. It's a gesture of trust if ever Thane has seen one. On her bicep, though, just barely revealed by the fabric sliding up, is a tattoo that Thane can't quite make out even though it looks positively drell.

"I meant to ask the next time that I caught you – no one has made you feel uncomfortable on board, have they? Tali and Garrus have assured me that the Cerberus crew have been cordial at worst, but I wanted another opinion."

"I confess, I have had very little interaction with the Cerberus crew members. Not much of my time has spent outside my quarters other than on the Citadel."

"By choice?" Shepard quirks an eyebrow, almost as if she's worried.

"Yes." Thane dips his head in affirmation. "I told you before. I have worked alone for many years."

"I understand." Shepard rolls her neck from side-to-side, and a _pop_ almost startles Thane. She must notice the movement, and she chuckles. "Do your joints not crack like that?"

"_Crack_?" Thane can't keep the incredulity from his voice.

"Yeah." Shepard's smile seems almost genuine. "We have something that lubricates our joints. Synovial fluid. It lets us pop our joints."

She puts her hands out and lets the palm of one hand push back on the fingers of the other to reproduce the sound.

"Why… would you want to do that? Is there a benefit?"

"You know, I actually don't think so. It's just satisfying." Shepard shrugs. "My body pops less now than it did before they rebuilt me, though. Smoother machine, I guess."

"In any event," Thane says, eyes still wary, "I apologize for disturbing you."

Shepard shrugs. "Glad you found me and not Grunt. Hard telling where I would have ended up. Hair in the toilet or something, probably."

Thane walks past her to draw his glass of water. "Forgive me, Shepard, but you do not sleep as much as a human should."

"No, I do not," Shepard confirms, but seems unfazed. "I was worried to begin with, but I think I just need… less sleep since dying. The vids always wanted to believe I was superhuman anyway. Guess it's true, now. Doesn't matter where I came from before."

Thane drinks and doesn't answer.

"How did you become an assassin?" she asks, shoulders slouching like she is on the brink of dozing off once again. Thane leans against the counter where Gardner always stands when on duty.

"It is not that I do not wish to have this conversation, Shepard, but if you truly need so little sleep, you should take advantage of it when your body asks for it."

Shepard punctuates his sentence with a yawn and waves a hand flippantly. "All you drell are all so _wise_."

There's a story there, he's sure, but for now, a small smile and, "And humans so stubborn. Sleep well, Shepard," will suffice.

If they are to trade tales, perhaps he will get a chance to ask about the vid after all.

* * *

There is no glory in telling others that the slog to her cabin is one filled with dread if not terror, the stars above her bed a reminder of how mortal she is. Shepard's heart thumps too loud in her chest, the picture of Kaidan on her desk a reminder of being raw and in pain. She looks at it, holding his gaze just a moment too long. Shepard reaches out, letting her fingers rest on the frame, but she can't lay it face down.

It's another reminder.

The stars.

Kaidan's eyes.

The galaxy is heavy for heroes.


	6. Chapter 6

The black suffocates. Shepard knows better, knows this is a dream, but what does it matter when she can feel her lungs rupturing as she tries to hold her breath? Her skin swells as her suit depressurizes and –

When the drell takes her hand, Shepard is stripped of her suit, helmet and all. It doesn't fall away from her; it just disappears into the ether of space. She's left with underclothes, and it should be colder (should be freezing – her eyelashes should be frosty, her intraocular fluid stiffening), but her drell smiles and it is like a sun thawing her from the inside out.

The dreams are usually like this, the drell a savior with webbed hands so beautiful that Shepard would kiss them if she thought the drell would give her a chance. No one knows what Arashu looks like if Shepard's reading is to be believed, but Shepard thinks Arashu might look like her drell, radiant, a halo of safety that radiates out just enough to let Shepard in and keep everything else out.

She opens her mouth, and every muscle in Shepard's body tenses, falling over herself to hear what the drell will say.

When her eyes shoot open, the blackness of space is above her but Shepard is not floating in it. The artificial gravity of the Normandy chains her to her bed and Shepard breathes deeply, oxygen soothing her lungs like a salve. Her sports bra clings to her ribs and she tries to relax, releasing the muscles in her core and shoulders as best as she can. There's no saliva in her mouth, and her legs move of their own accord, a primal instinct pulling her to the closest source of water on the ship.

The water in her shower is _technically_ the closest, but it isn't safe to drink. When she had asked, Jacob had apologized: "Sorry. You'll have to slum it in the mess with the rest of us."

It had sounded sarcastic, even though looking back Shepard knows it was just dry humor. At the time, she had fixed him with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical look.

"You've got the wrong idea, Taylor. _You're_ the ones slumming it with _me._"

He'd given her a smirk, then, and she'd known he was really part of the crew. It wasn't a joke, though. Almost every crew member who has ever served under Shepard has had a cleaner history than her. After Elysium, of course, her records were expunged; it is the world's worst-kept secret that she was a world-class criminal at seventeen. Everyone knows, but legally, it never happened. If they live through this suicide mission, though, the Alliance will surely have something to say about this affiliation with Cerberus, war hero or not. This is a far cry from stealing skycars and… other things.

The elevator is near-silent, marvel of technology that the Normandy is, but the same cannot be said for the mess. Mordin is precise, certainly, but stealthy? Not so much. He jitters and jerks about like only a salarian can, seemingly on the same mission that Shepard herself is pursuing.

"Shepard." Mordin's acknowledgment takes less than a quarter of a second, and the glance he spares her mirrors it.

"Mordin. Everything alright?"

"Of course. New environment better than expected; knew Cerberus was wealthy, _did not_ expect them to be so accommodating. Have not worked with such resources since time with STG."

"Glad it's to your liking." Shepard can't suppress a smile.

"Was hoping I'd run into you. Have personal favor to ask, before we take on the Collectors."

"Shoot." Shepard takes the space next to him, fishing for water to relieve her own thirst once Mordin has done the same.

"Had an assistant, Maelon. Helped me with the genophage. He was a brilliant geneticist; had the most potential of any salarian I've ever worked with. Received news recently that he has been captured by krogan, held on Tuchanka." Mordin grimaces. "The consequences if the krogan realized his work on his genophage could be… fatal."

Shepard downs her water in one gulp and swallows the instinct to clap Mordin on the shoulder. "You got that, EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard. Setting course for Tuchanka." After a moment of calculations, EDI speaks again. "We are on track to arrive at Tuchanka in nine hours. Would you like me to alert another person to join your ground party?"

"No thanks, EDI. I'll let them know myself."

"Understood."

Mordin nods. "Thank you, Shepard."

"Requests for another member of the ground party?" Shepard asks; her critics have always called her a little too egalitarian, but she doesn't know Mordin that well. Making him uncomfortable on a mission that's for him is the last thing that she wants.

"Not really. Trust your judgment." He pauses for a moment. "Discretion is… hallmark, I suppose, of a good assassin."

Shepard's eyes flit to life support. Grunt will be irritated to miss time on Tuchanka, with Wrex, but _discretion_ and _Grunt_ don't belong in the same sentence. In any event, Shepard will be more comfortable asking about Grunt's _behavioral issues_ without him actually present. "You've got it. Haven't had a chance to see him in action much, anyway."

"Remind him about the biopsy," Mordin says, splitting with her at the elevator as she readies herself to knock on Thane's door. "Must have forgotten. Have not heard from him since I suggested it."

"I'm sure he must have." Shepard can't keep the snark from her voice, but Mordin wouldn't know it if it punched him in the face. Her hand raises in the universal signal of an incoming knock, but the door opens before she can manage to do so.

She lets out an exhalation of moderate surprise. Thane doesn't turn to face her, but he says, "Forgive my presumptuousness, Shepard. I heard you speaking with Dr. Solus outside and asked EDI to open the door."

Thane never moves from his seat. Shepard crosses the room in a few steps and, remembering his words about being the last to leave the room, takes it as a seed of trust. She'd shown him her stomach; he lets her see his back.

"Any objections to being part of my ground party in about nine hours?" Shepard leans against the window across from Thane's table-desk, next to his (rather extensive) collection of firearms.

"None." Thane folds his hands under his chin and finally makes eye contact with her. "Our objective, if I may ask?"

"Personal favor. Mordin's assistant is on Tuchanka, presumed captive by krogan."

"That hardly seems cause to divert the course of our entire mission."

Shepard shrugs; to many a different commander, Thane might have been right, but there's a reason that Tali and Garrus were willing to be part of her crew even if it meant being Cerberus. "I meant what I said before, at the debrief. There's no guarantee that any of us come back from this alive. I want everyone to feel at ease with that, or at least as at ease as we can manage."

She must come off a little more concerned than she means to, because Thane cracks a dark smirk. "I'm dying anyway, Shepard. You'll hear no complaints from me."

"Can you explain a little what's happening to you?" It's not the time to admit that she'd come across Kepral's Syndrome more than once in her reading. Hearing it from his mouth makes much more sense. "Mordin talked about it, but I couldn't keep up. I'm a damn good engineer, but I'm no scientist."

"Drell were not made to live on Kahje, but when the hanar rescued us, we made do. Sadly, placing desert life in such humid conditions has… consequences. My lungs do not process oxygen properly. With time, the condition will spread to other organs, but that will not happen until after our time together is up, unless this mission takes a few years."

Shepard knits her brow and crosses her arms. "There's no cure? At the very least I would think that you would have the option of a lung transplant before it spreads."

Thane fixes her with a look that Shepard interprets as scrutinizing. "I have made peace with my fate, Shepard. When Kalahira welcomes me, I hope I will have made the world a better place despite the evil that I have done in the past."

Shepard closes her eyes and nods. "Fair enough." She pushes off from the window. "I don't understand much of your people's relationship with the hanar. Someday you'll have to tell me more about the Compact."

That gets Thane's attention. "You asked how I became an assassin. You already have the answer. At six, the hanar saw skill in me."

"Six?"

The bafflement must show on her face, because Thane says, "It is not all as it sounds. I did not make my first kill until I was twelve."

Twelve. She lost her mother, then. Shepard swallows hard.

"I understand how it sounds to other species, but the Compact is a great honor. I saw it as such, and so did my parents."

Shepard nods, feeling exposed no longer leaning up against the window. "I would like to understand it more, I think. To me, it sounds like slavery."

"Rest assured, my teachers were not slavers."

She starts walking out, smiling slightly as she says goodbye. "We take a shuttle down to Tuchanka. They don't have a dock for the Normandy."

"Understood."

* * *

Thane doesn't dislike Mordin, but he is truly the antithesis of Thane's preferred style of work. To anyone who can't follow his rapid-fire thought processes, he is completely unpredictable. That Shepard can follow him with any degree of certainty is a testament to her technical mind.

The Cerberus shuttle pilot does not seem thrilled that Thane and Mordin are Shepard's weapons of choice, but he has the professionalism to at least not say so. Jacob keeps his comments (if not his glare) to himself, and Tali waves him off happily.

He has not known many quarians, but she is exceptionally kind as well as capable of holding her own, he thinks. There are few who would ask him to do something as domestic as play cards. Perhaps he will have to take her up on the offer if there is a next time.

They load up to leave, but Shepard is conspicuously absent.

"Would say we could just go by ourselves," Mordin says to Thane as an aside, "But Shepard's reputation is the only that will keep krogan from tearing me apart as soon as we land. They don't even know I created the genophage."

Grunt's footsteps pound on the metal of the CIC as he and Shepard exit the elevator, and he is heated as Thane has ever seen a krogan.

"After this mission," Shepard says as she leaves him behind. "We will get this sorted out. I promise."

Grunt growls menacingly, and once her back is to him she exhales heavily.

The shuttle pilot asks, "Is he going to –"

"Already told Garrus to keep an eye on him. Tali too, but Grunt respects Garrus a little more." Shepard's eyes swing from Thane to Mordin to the pilot and back to Thane. "Let's head out."

Thane is last in the shuttle, even though Shepard rolls her eyes good-naturedly when she notices. Mordin is peppering the pilot with questions, and in the interim, Thane says, "Grunt seemed unnaturally agitated, even for a krogan."

Shepard nods, exhaling again, reminiscent of how she had done just before on the ship. "I don't know what's going on with him. If I'd known that he was a centimeter from totally snapping, I would have made it the priority, but he didn't press the issue until I told him I was heading for the shuttle."

She puts her helmet on but keeps speaking through their comms link. "He'll be fine. And if he's not, Garrus took on the Blood Pack, the Blue Suns, _and _Eclipse at the same time on Omega. If anyone can handle it, it's him."

"If I recall, Shepard, you may have played a hand in things."

Shepard chuckles softly. "Only at the end."


	7. Chapter 7

Thane has never been to Tuchanka before, but when the shuttle door whooshes open, he knows that he likes it much more than many planets he has visited. The krogan have destroyed their planet, but in doing so they have made it a desert; it is no Rakhana, certainly, but when Thane breathes in, it feels _right_. The sensation lasts only momentarily as the reality of his previous thought crashes over him. Tuchanka is not a desert. It is a wasteland, devastated by krogan hubris and galactic disenfranchisement.

"Long time since I've been to Tuchanka. Not much has changed." Mordin pauses and looks at Shepard. "Urdnot Wrex has a lot of work to do."

"Nobody else could get the job done even if they tried," Shepard says as she steps out of the shuttle. "I didn't let him live on Virmire just for him to fail here on his own planet."

She doesn't elaborate, and it's difficult to get a read on her through her armor from the back. They pick their way through rubble into the heart of krogan civilization, Mordin unflinching despite the weight of the stares around them. Thane himself is not quite _uncomfortable_, but it is not his preferred method of entry. Being out of the spotlight is his entire philosophy. His efficacy drops significantly if people already know he is in the area.

To their left, there is a krogan vendor with a varren that's as domesticated as varren get. Northwest, Thane sees a rocket turret that looks as though it was set up to deal with _pyjaks_, of all things as well as a mechanic and a varren fighting pit that looks downright barbaric. Shepard spares all these sights little more than a cursory glance, gaze dialing in immediately on a makeshift throne that sits a massive krogan who Thane recognizes only from the dossier for a job he refused to take.

_Urdnot Wrex is a threat to the galaxy. The resurgence of the krogan under his leadership would prove disastrous. Take care of him._

The message had been followed by a credit amount that would have been difficult to pass up in the days where Irikah, Kolyat, and Thane had been a unit, but that time had long passed, and after his own research on Urdnot Wrex, the job had not been worth it. Killing someone trying only to restore krogan honor and secure them a place in the galaxy was as unseemly a job as Thane had seen in a long time, and as a matter of policy he tried to avoid political assassinations (with very few exceptions).

Wrex looks bored, mostly, which is a far cry from the bloodlust that usually paints a krogan's face in battle. Another krogan nearly as massive as Wrex himself paces in front of the throne, lecturing animatedly. Thane hears only snippets, focused in on the guards who stop Shepard at the threshold.

"Don't come any closer, human. The chief is busy."

Shepard's impatience is uncharacteristic, but effective, and Thane wonders if it's just because she knows exactly how to deal with krogan. She shakes her head in irritated disbelief, ripping her helmet off almost recklessly with one hand and pulling at the nearest guard's cowl with the other.

"_Do you know who I am?_" she snarls, and the krogan scowls, raring back as if ready to charge.

Thane's biotics thrum into his right hand, ready for a fight, but Wrex's voice booms over them before any of them get the chance to inflict bloodshed.

"Shepard!"

Wrex lumbers off his throne and Shepard releases the krogan guard with a shove and a glare that could cow a god. The guard doesn't step aside and is nearly trampled in Wrex's wake, a veritable krogan charge with a grin.

"My friend!" Wrex's exclamation bellows out across this wasteland of a city, and Shepard smirks, arms open in a welcoming human display. He ignores her motion, wrapping his arms around her (comparatively tiny) human waist, lifting Shepard into the air. She laughs, pounding a gloved hand on his back as hard as she can manage, and when he finally releases her from his grip, Wrex says, "You look well for dead. I should have known the void couldn't hold you."

It is one thing to read about the exploits of Commander Evangeline Shepard; it is another to watch her play off one of the other storied heroes from her tale, one of the only krogan even remotely close to respected in the galaxy.

They swap stories and reminisce, Mordin growing more agitated the longer that he remains quiet behind her. If Thane were him, he would be thankful. Wrex and Shepard are raucous enough that eyes are no longer on Mordin or Thane, and Thane is nearly six times as efficient that way.

"Shepard." When Mordin interjects, Wrex finally seems to notice him and Thane as well. "Maelon?"

"Some things never change, hm, Shepard? The Normandy wouldn't be the Normandy unless you had as many non-humans on it as possible," Wrex says, his eyes lingering on Thane just a little longer than he'd like. Thane's posture stiffens under Wrex's gaze, but Shepard's laugh draws him back.

"You looking for an invitation? We could use you. I've got a teenage krogan I can barely keep under wraps anyway."

That piques Wrex's interest, but he shakes his head even though he can't quite stifle the gleam in his eyes. "A tempting offer, but no one else can rebuild Tuchanka like I can."

A krogan behind him scoffs and starts to say something. Wrex does not deem him worth turning around for, but he still says, "Speak when spoken to, Uvenk. I'll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not."

Something in Shepard dims, but it is subtle enough that Thane doesn't think that anyone not trained to look for it would see. "Suit yourself." Shepard shrugs, still smirking even though it's flat. "We're looking for a salarian who might have come through here. Mordin thinks he was kidnapped by Blood Pack."

"Haven't heard or seen anything myself, but I'm mostly tied up in _politics_ these days." Wrex spits the word _politics_ like it's a vulgarity. "My chief scout knows everything about everything. If anyone's seen your salarian, he'll have information."

"Thanks," Shepard says, pulling her helmet back into place and rolling her neck from side-to-side like she'd done in the mess. "I'll be back. My teenage krogan is having some issues adjusting."

Wrex nods and turns back towards his throne. "You know where to find me."

Mordin shakes his head rapidly as they walk down towards the heart of the encampment. "Don't like this, Shepard. Something feels wrong."

"We'll figure it out, Mordin," Shepard snaps, too harsh for the conversation that she's just had. "Let's talk to the scout."

Seeing Wrex is a knife driving itself into her navel. He is the last of the SR-1's crew who she had not seen since her rebirth. He is the last because Joker, Tali, and Garrus are at her side, Liara is in Nos Astra, and Ashley scolded her on Horizon. He is the last because Kaidan is not alive.

The grief rips through Shepard like lightning, the scars on her face throbbing with a feeling that flirts with betrayal. Logic tells her that she has been gone two years, that it is naïve to think that everyone will put their life on hold to help her, but the wound festers no less. Joker was in before she even woke up. Garrus dropped everything as soon as he knew she was alive. Tali finished a mission and boarded the Normandy right after.

Her temper flares despite everyone having good reasons. Liara couldn't be an information broker on the Normandy? Wrex had no one on Tuchanka that he trusted enough to hold down the fort for a while? And Ashley – Ashley hurts more than anyone else. She had looked at Shepard like she didn't even _know_ her.

They all have their reasons, and they're good reasons, even if Ashley's circle back to Shepard being a treasonous traitor.

Would Kaidan have trusted her enough? If she hadn't been enough to convince him, would seeing Garrus and Tali and Joker do it?

Does it matter? She made a choice that left Kaidan behind. She _killed_ him.

The rage is blinding, like a red film over an ocean of grief. Shepard seethes in the safety of her helmet's tinted visor.

"_This is not like you."_

It is the first time she has heard her drell since she was dead.

Tears prick at her eyes but she swallows them deeply, buries them in the parts of her that she has kept to herself since her mother died. It is too conspicuous to remove herself from the party's comm frequency, so she mouths it to herself silently.

"_Guide this one._"

The words are from an old drell prayer, one for Kalahira, and Shepard still does not consider herself religious, but she believes in her drell. She has begun to think that perhaps her drell is Arashu or Kalahira herself.

The snippet of a prayer is a salve, washing the red from her vision and replacing it with inscrutable clarity. Thane and Mordin follow after her diligently, unaware of her crisis or kind enough not to mention it.

Thane is unreadable as ever, but the longer that they go without news of Maelon, the more agitated that Mordin becomes. There's no reason to put it off any longer than they have to, so once she recovers her senses, Shepard makes a beeline for the chief scout, strides lengthening.

"Shepard." Thane interrupts her single-minded path towards the scout. "The krogan Wrex called Uvenk has been watching you since we walked away."

Shepard snorts. "I _have_ always had a way with krogan."

Thane rewards her with a soft chuckle. "Be that as it may, Shepard, every krogan in the area wearing his clan colors have been looking as well."

His follow-up is sobering. "Noted. We'll keep an eye on it. Thanks, Thane."

"My pleasure."

The scout is helpful, and Mordin decompresses almost instantly merely at the fact that Maelon's presence is confirmed.

"I heard rumors that they're hiding a salarian in Weyrloc territory. Something to do with the _genophage._" He punctuates his last word by looking Mordin up and down predatorily.

"Can you point us in the right direction?"

Shepard punches the coordinates into her omni-tool and thanks the scout. Thane and Mordin nod.

"The shuttle can drop us closer. Let's go."

Shepard's boots hold firm on the uneven Tuchankan ground, Mordin's jittery step close behind. She trusts Thane is following her as well, a soundless shadow. She may not have noticed before, but after Thane's warnings, Uvenk's eyes hang heavy on her back in the shape of a target.

* * *

Krogan are not subtle at the best of times, and the krogan known as Uvenk is no different. He is conspicuous, especially after drawing so much attention to himself in their initial meeting with Wrex. Thane would have noticed anyway, the eyes of everyone who shares Uvenk's clan colors, but it is such an _amateur_ attempt that Thane almost laughs. Shepard has been otherwise occupied and has not noticed herself, but that is why she has someone like Thane at her side, he supposes. From her possibilities for ground crew, Garrus, Miranda, Jacob, and Samara _certainly_ would not have missed the signs either.

Thane is glad that he had not accepted the contract to kill Urdnot Wrex. It's really no surprise how far the krogan have fallen if their leaders were so often like Uvenk rather than Wrex (notwithstanding salarian intervention, of course; the krogan were at a disadvantage from the moment they played out their hand by exterminating the rachni and the galaxy no longer had a use for them).

Thane closes his eyes and inhales deeply, a meditation in only a moment, the polar opposite of Mordin. Mordin radiates nervous energy more than usual. This assistant must have been something special for the great Dr. Solus to value his wellbeing so highly.

Shepard has not had a chance to see him in action except for his assassination of Nassana Dantius. If she has any doubts about her investment, she will not after this mission.

Mordin paces back and forth, stopping only briefly to brace himself as the shuttle takes off. Shepard sits across from Thane, removing her helmet and massaging her temples as discreetly as she can manage.

"_You can't keep living the same way you did before." Irikah isn't crying. He has only seen her cry a handful of times. _

"_It is the only way I know to support us-"_

_She doesn't let him finish. "You can't __**support**__ us if you aren't ever here."_

_Irikah raises a hand to her forehead and rubs small circles between her eyes._

The memory is over as soon as it begins, but it is Shepard that pulls him back, waving a gloved hand in front of him.

"Apologies, Shepard," he says, throat dry. "Memories."

Shepard surprises him, chuckling.

"Yeah. I've been there."


	8. Chapter 8

Tuchanka is _hot_, Shepard thinks, even though that might mostly be psychosomatic. Her suit has processes designed to regulate internal climate control, but when Shepard catches glimpses of Aralakh out of the corner of her eye, the unforgiving star that breathed life into Tuchanka the first time around, she feels hot.

Flashes of a life that is millions of lightyears in the past flicker through her mind. In no particular order, Shepard remembers:

\- A childhood visit to the Grand Canyon

\- The cactus that lived on her windowsill until she wasn't a little girl anymore

\- A woman on an ancient motorbike, accelerating wildly on a run-down strip of pavement that splits a desert in two, so entrancing, so free that Shepard considers for the first time that maybe love is real

\- The Tenth Street Reds dropping her into the middle of the Mojave, claiming it was an "initiation"

\- Her own voice: "Nothing beautiful ever came out of a desert anyway."  
\- Kaidan, somewhere close by: "Not true. You came out of one, Shepard."  
\- Herself, again, snorting: "Los Angeles being built in the desert isn't really true. You know that, right? It's a Mediterranean climate, or something."  
\- Kaidan, sighing: "You're tough to compliment."

It's not really a desert. There are too many ruins interrupting what should be dry shrubbery and sand, but it's close enough.

She has been out of the shuttle for only thirty seconds, and Mordin jumps out quickly behind her, wasting no time and clearly itching to move. Thane's disembarkment is more measured, and in fact, Shepard would not even know for certain that he was there if she didn't chance a glance behind her.

Shepard motions over her shoulder, gesturing forward in an Alliance hand signal that usually translates well enough to non-humans. Mordin and Thane get the gist, matching her pace as she moves forward, SMG at the ready because diplomacy isn't always a possibility with krogan.

"Comms check. Mordin? Thane?" The time she doesn't quadruple-check their link will be the one that it fails, and she'd rather that not be today.

"Shepard."

"Shepard."

Thane and Mordin respond in unison, and she nods minutely even though they probably can't see it.

"Joker?"

"Copy, Commander."

He'd made fun of her once, for checking comm links so many times. Joker's probably the only person that could get away with it, so it worked out alright.

"The Urdnot scout said that Clan Weyrloc's been hiding out in an old hospital. Keep your eyes open; I've got the coordinates, but extra caution never hurt anybody. Stay sharp."

Tuchanka, for as desolate as it looks, should be quieter, but the air buzzes with the sound of native wildlife, masking sounds that greater danger could make. The fauna itself is also worthy of respect. Two klixen around a corner manage to startle Shepard for half a second before she unloads her SMG in one. Mordin and Thane dispatch the other, a cryo blast into a biotic throw, the very model of efficiency.

And they walk, boots on the ground. Shepard's muscles are tense, prepared for an ambush despite the fact that the Blood Pack is not known for its subtlety. In fact, when they finally come across the Blood Pack, they hear them before they see them, and it isn't because the world has grown quieter; they are simply _that loud_.

A rocket launcher discharges around another bend, perfectly in line with the coordinates of the hospital that's put into her suit's navigation system. Shepard suppresses an eyeroll as vorcha laughter rolls towards them.

"Two hostiles by the sound of it. Both vorcha, at least one heavily armed."

Her deductions are correct, but both vorcha have rocket launchers and with the addition of another klixen, larger than the two they took care of before.

"Thane, you're on the left vorcha, Mordin on the klixen. I've got the one on the right."

Shepard's combat drone takes off with ease, floating harmlessly enough towards them and almost close enough to the right vorcha that he could touch it before noticing. He gives the drone a questioning look that lasts a second too long as Mordin repeats his display from before, launching a cryo blast from a distance at the klixen.

The vorcha on the left floats helplessly in a blue cloud of Thane's biotics, his rocket launcher still on the ground. The second vorcha points his own weapon at Thane, and Mordin lets loose a short gasp as he pulls the trigger. He pulls the trigger once, twice, a third time, each result the same; the rocket launcher doesn't fire, and with every moment that passes, Shepard walks closer.

"I was worried for a moment," Thane says. "Your drone is so efficient that I didn't see it jam the weapon."

Shepard chuckles, firing three rounds into the vorcha. "Her name is Âu Cơ. She's cleverer than me most of the time."

The drone flies back to her, taking up its usual place over her right shoulder. It's juvenile, she supposes, to name a combat drone, but every one she's ever programmed has just been an earlier incarnation of this one. Âu Cơ is her oldest and most consistent friend, bar none. She'll only let Shepard down if Shepard fails her first.

A gunshot pulls Shepard from her thoughts. Her neck swivels towards the sound, landing on Mordin, who has fired into the klixen that had previously been frozen still.

He shrugs. "Insurance, Shepard."

* * *

Thane had taken her words about dispatching the left vorcha at face value, so to turn and meet the other one's rocket launcher pointed at his head was unsettling. For a moment, it had even looked like it was going to end poorly. Mordin certainly thought so; his gasp over the comm link had more or less settled that.

It would have been an unceremonious way to die, really, after everything his life has been so far, although dying in a hospital bed won't be much better. With any luck, Shepard's suicide mission really is a suicide mission.

The two vorcha and singular klixen are the last defenses outside the hospital, though Thane is sure that more violence awaits them inside. The entryway jams, and Shepard has to force her way through, placing her body in the small gap available between the double doors. She strains, pushing, and Thane has the time to just briefly consider that a human shouldn't be _able_ to push open a door like that, one made for krogan –

As the thought crosses his mind, Shepard gives one last hard shove, and the doors rocket apart, like she's loosened the mechanism through sheer force alone. Where her gloved hands gripped just moments before, the metal of the door is dented, and yes, it is outside the general spectrum of human ability to be able to do that.

Shepard knows it too, eyes lingering at the damage she has done by herself to the reinforced metal of a hospital door.

Whatever Cerberus mixed with her when they brought her back, it certainly wasn't all organic.

"Repurposed hospital. Fitting." Mordin's words are brief as they enter the building, and it doesn't take long before they can confirm that they're in the right place. "That body." Mordin is the first to speak of the corpse on a landing just down a flight of stairs. "Human. Need to take a look."

His omnitool projects an image of the human skeleton, but Mordin doesn't even stop talking to look at it. "Sores, tumors, ligatures showing restraint at wrists and ankles. Track marks for repeated injection sites. Test subject. Victim of experimentation."

"Sounds like some Cerberus shit." Shepard has forgotten that they are linked to the Normandy or, more likely, she simply doesn't care. Mordin shakes his head.

"No. Too much finesse. Unethical, but sophisticated. Humans make perfect test subjects. Genetically diverse. Never used them myself. Disgusting. For brute-force researchers, not academics." Mordin sighs. "Unfortunately, conceptually sound. Genophage alters hormone levels. Could repair damage with hormonal counterattack."

Shepard seems more unaffected by the human test subject than Thane had expected, but perhaps that was his own mistake. She'd killed plenty of Eclipse humans on her mission to find him alone.

"We can't do anything for him. Let's go."

Thane's prayer is momentary and silent. He knows nothing about this human, but there is no honor in a death like this one. So quick is the commemoration that Shepard and Mordin do not even notice that he doesn't immediately follow.

The hospital is quiet, unnervingly so. Krogan are not known for their sense of strategy, but Thane would guess that their altercation with the vorcha at the entrance has alerted them to an intrusion, which would mean that it is likely that they have pooled their resources in a central location in an attempt to head off Shepard's incursion.

"Shepard." Saying her name is enough to get Shepard to stop, and Thane says, "Listen."

Heavy footsteps thud in the next room, along with the clinking of metal against metal. Shepard nods and makes the same gesture that she had early that Thane takes to mean _forward._

The room is as heavily populated as Thane had thought. Several krogan, at least eight at a cursory glance, dot the room. Four stand on an overhanging bridge, three are on the right side of the room, and the last one has his back turned to them, punching buttons haphazardly on a weapons locker.

The biggest krogan laughs, leaning forward on the railing of the bridge he stands upon. "This is what they send to stop us? A human, a salarian, and a drell?" He laughs again, bellowing loudly across the room. "When we cure the genophage, Weyrloc Guld will rule all krogan! The surviving races will frighten their children with tales of what the Blood Pack did to the turians."

Shepard's laugh mirrors the speaker's, and it startles him enough to pause his monologue. "I can't imagine Garrus afraid of anything except speaking to his father."

The krogan scowls and continues: "The asari will scream as-"

Shepard sighs, a reckless smile in her voice. "You talk too much."

She fires two shots from the pistol that hung limply at her side just moments before, and Thane would have to admit that he's impressed. The explosive symbol on the pipe had escaped him until just moments before, and it appears that the krogan still don't know about it.

"See? The human cannot hit a simple target."

"Can't be helped. I'm just an engineer." Shepard raises her left hand, the one without the pistol, and forms her fingers in the general shape of a gun, pointing it straight at the speaker as the pipe explodes underneath him.

"Points for style, Shepard."

"The smoke gives us cover and she killed four of the krogan with two bullets. It's as fair of a fight as we could hope for," Thane says.

"Thane, cover the left flank; Mordin, stay back and incinerate what you can. I'll stay on the right."

Krogan aren't like asari or humans or salarians or even turians. There is no quick, easy, cut-and-dry way to kill them. Most species drop with a twist of the neck. The exceptions are hanar, elcor, and krogan, among others, and krogan are the sturdiest of them all. Still, these krogan are not coordinated. They have been thrown into more chaos than usual by Shepard's quick thinking, so Thane's general approach will do: shoot them until they regenerate, warp them with biotics, finish the job. It is a tried and true method if not a clean one, and there is not truly a neat way to kill krogan, although an incineration from Mordin _does_ help.

Once Thane rids himself of the only krogan even remotely close to the left side of the room, the smoke has begun to dissipate. It is far from a clear shot, and Shepard is more than capable; she has killed three with only a little help from Mordin, and the fourth is not in good condition. Thane takes the final shot anyway in an echo of Mordin's earlier sentiment – insurance.

Shepard offers him a thumbs up, the most ubiquitous of human gestures, and then the same in Mordin's direction before they move on to the next room.

* * *

The genophage issue is complicated, Thane thinks as Shepard and Mordin share words over a data console containing evidence from some of the experiments conducted here. The salarian approach is a logical one, and Thane has killed plenty for worse reasons than the genophage was developed and then modified. It is the systemic nature of it that is bothersome, the structural ramifications, the willingness of one species to play at being a god over another.

Quite suddenly, he thinks that perhaps other species must feel similarly about the Compact.

"Understand rationale for modified genophage," Mordin says, "Right choice. Still hard to sleep some nights."

If ever there was a sentiment that Thane understood, that one hit close to home.

* * *

"Right choice. Still hard to sleep some nights."

Mordin says it like he has never considered the alternative, and Shepard wonders if that makes him better or worse than her, because she has wondered a thousand times what Virmire and the aftermath might have been like if she'd left Ashley behind instead.

They move little by little, slower than Shepard might like, but this somehow feels personal. This is what Wrex is trying to fix, what Mordin helped to perpetuate. The thoughts swirl in her head like a cloud, and she misses something that Thane clearly does not as he ducks into a room that probably had a door once but doesn't anymore.

An unmistakable mass lays on a run-down gurney, covered in a blanket so large that it could almost be called a tarp. Thane's webbed hand rests gently on the blanket, his eyes shut like they had been for Nassana Dantius so long ago.

"Female krogan. Volunteer. Sterile. Hoped for cure. _Pointless_ waste of life." Mordin sighs heavily and takes a pause that feels like an eternity. "Need to look. Need to see. Accept it as necessary. See small picture. Remind myself why I run a clinic on Omega." Mordin's hand hovers over the body much as Thane's did, and he says, "Rest, young mother. Find your gods. Find someplace better."

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Thane speaks. "Two prayers will find her somewhere where she can have peace."

"Hard to see big picture behind pile of bodies," Mordin says, not looking at Thane or Shepard. "Not easy. Choice could have fallen on someone else. Not my problem." He sighs again. "Fool's wish. Had to be me. Someone else would have gotten it wrong."

Shepard averts her eyes, wondering if Thane also feels like Mordin's words have wormed their way under his skin.

_Someone else would have gotten it wrong._

Who's to say that any of them has ever gotten it right?

Mordin mutters to himself endlessly, and Shepard can't bring herself to stop him. The comm link is shared, but Mordin is too preoccupied to hear what Thane says.

"Given your reaction to the Compact, I thought you would perhaps be more critical of his involvement with the genophage."

Shepard looks to Thane sharply, almost surprised.

"I killed plenty of batarians on Elysium. I have no room to judge."

"I would not call a genophage as heroic as your actions during the Skyllian Blitz."

"Is that so?" Shepard fixes him with an intent stare. "How do you suppose retaliation for the attack on Elysium got off to such a good start? What happened on Torfan probably wasn't my fault, but my actions certainly didn't help."

Thane is silent, so Shepard continues. "I made the right choice. I can empathize. The big picture is littered with corpses."


	9. Chapter 9

A dull throbbing settles into the base of Shepard's head, or maybe it's been there the whole time and she hasn't noticed. Her father only ever gave her two things: her name, and this. Migraines came and went on Earth, but they were a thing of the past; Shepard hasn't had one since she joined the Alliance, health package and all. It's hard to know what another person's pain is like, but she thinks that they probably were never as bad as the ones Kaidan occasionally had. She's still got the medicine (with a Cerberus logo on the packaging, of course), but her brain must not agree with all the wires in her head nowadays. The pricking is a precursor to the kind of hurt that used to lay her out for days at a time, and there isn't time for that as she, Thane, and Mordin cross the threshold into the room where Mordin's former assistant stands. The sight of Maelon does the impossible; Mordin is rendered speechless, if only momentarily.

"A-" Mordin starts and stops, actually staggering back a step. Shepard has never seen him so off of his rhythm, perhaps because he always expects the rest of the world to adjust to the beat that he sets. "Alive. Unharmed."

Shepard raises an eyebrow, though neither of them can see behind her visor. "Safe to assume this is our guy?"

Maelon inputs and calculates with the singlemindedness only a salarian can manage. His coat resembles Mordin's, and frankly, Shepard might not know the difference from behind were it not for the fact that both his horns are fully intact.

Mordin holsters his weapon, but Shepard does not mirror him. Thane follows her lead, but she can't imagine that he has not come to the same conclusion that she has.

"No restraints. No evidence of torture. Don't understand." Mordin speaks softly to himself, but not soft enough. Maelon turns to the sound of Mordin's voice, and the light flickering off the holoscreens illuminates Maelon's face.

Shepard isn't sure if salarians are capable of rolling their eyes, but disdain is dripping from Maelon's voice regardless. "For such a smart man, Professor, you always had trouble seeing evidence that disagreed with your preconceptions. How long will it take you to admit that I'm here because I wish to be here?"

Maelon's words are electric, fizzling in the space between himself and Mordin as they stare at each other singlemindedly.

"The Blood Pack never kidnapped Maelon," Shepard says, finally; the silence is untenable and the weight of it hangs heavy in the air, and whether Mordin can see it or not, Maelon has made his choice. "He went to them. He's working on a cure voluntarily."

For the first time since stepping into the room, Mordin tears his eyes from Maelon, locking on Shepard's visor well enough that she might actually believe that he's holding her gaze. "Impossible."

Shepard raises her eyebrows even though Mordin can't see, nodding her head softly in Mordin's direction as explanation.

"Whole team agreed!" Mordin mirrors her, looking at Maelon again. "Project necessary!"

Shepard's Cerberus fingers twitch around the trigger of her pistol against her will, a particularly sharp pulse of pain from the back of her head the culprit. The gun doesn't fire, but her breath catches loud enough that the comms pick it up. Mordin is too enthralled by the altercation he continues with Maelon to notice, but she is not so lucky with Thane. His eyes flit to her briefly, so fast that Shepard almost thinks that she imagines it. Steadying her voice, willing the tremble from it (she has control enough for that, at least), channeling the anger she's still feeling from Wrex's betrayal, she asks, "What happens if the genophage is cured and the krogan expand again? That will be on your head."

"Look at this galaxy." Maelon gestures wildly. "Batarian attacks in the Traverse, geth attacks on the Citadel. Is this a more peaceful universe for what we did to the krogan? The assault on Eden Prime may never have happened if we left the krogan alone."

Curiosity gets the best of her. "How would a krogan population have done anything to stop Saren and the geth?"

Maelon scoffs. "I'd always heard that the great Commander Shepard was _smart_, but I should have known that what that really meant was smart _for a human_." Rage as red as blood pricks at the edges of her vision, and she swallows hard, burying it in the pit of her stomach as Maelon continues. "An increased krogan population would have forced the Council to take steps, likely involving colony rights in the Traverse. Do you think active turian fleets in the area would have left any room for the geth to do _anything_ on Eden Prime?"

"Supposition." Mordin spits, and Shepard almost expects a frog-like tongue to lash out from his mouth. Shepard's grasp on salarian anatomy is admittedly lacking, but it's hard for her to extricate _amphibious_ from _frog-ish._

The tangent proves a welcome distraction from the agony that is collecting itself where her spine connects to her skull, waiting to strike at what Shepard is _certain_ will be the most inopportune time possible. Thane's gaze flicks towards her again, more like a lizard than a frog, reptilian rather than amphibious. Her eyes lock with his, even if he wouldn't know it through her visor. Mordin, of course, has eyes only for Maelon.

"This project is over," Shepard finally says as Mordin's voice crescendos, nearing a shout. "We're shutting this lab down."

"Shutting down more than that." It's something that Shepard thinks would have been more effective had it been muttered, but the argument has escalated all of Mordin's words to a shout. The headache pulses at the volume of the argument, inching ever closer to the migraine that Shepard knows she is on the brink of.

* * *

It shouldn't surprise him, but it does; Shepard stops Mordin from shooting his former assistant, which, morally, is the correct choice. Her voice doesn't quite quiver, but she seems unsteady when she says, "You heard the professor. Get out before he changes his mind."

When Mordin speaks again, he sounds at odds with himself, like he is saying the right words but doesn't believe them. "His research. Should destroy it. Tainted."

Thane's sure she'll agree, but she doesn't, though that shouldn't be a surprise either given her opinion on the genophage itself. A pregnant pause precedes Shepard saying, "Keep the data. Better to have it and not need it."

Mordin busies himself with the data as Shepard turns towards the door where they came in. When it swings open, she steps out into the rest of the complex. As Mordin wraps up, wiping Maelon's research locally as he saves it onto his omnitool, Thane follows her out.

Shepard's back is to him and her helmet is on the ground, her gloved hands fumbling with the elastic tying her hair back from her face before she suddenly gives up, heaving over as close as she can towards the wall, and retching. The vomit splatters on the floor, but if Shepard is uncomfortable, she gives no sign of it. Instead, she finishes taking the elastic out of her hair, dropping it at her feet and spreading a hand across her face, middle finger and thumb each rubbing one of her temples. Shepard turns; Thane was not trying to be quiet, but years of assassination have made him more than adept at it even unintentionally.

When she spots him, her face cracks into a smirk. "Come out to hold my hair?"

"Do humans not have two hands?" Thane asks, folding his own behind him, uncomfortable with the joke even as he half-heartedly attempts it.

Shepard laughs briefly through her nose. "Don't worry; I'm done anyway. It usually relieves the headache for a while."

The door swings open a second time, and Mordin doesn't notice anything: not Thane's gaze swinging to him when he walks out, not Shepard wiping at the corner of her mouth, not even the chirping of his own omnitool at his side. "Ready to go," he says absently, "Ready to be off Tuchanka. Anywhere else. Maybe somewhere sunny."

"Couldn't agree more," Shepard says, scooping her helmet off the ground and gritting her teeth before they start walking. "I was wrong, Thane. It doesn't feel that much better. I think I'd rather have gotten shot. Maybe even shot twice."

Thane doesn't know if it's intentional, but Mordin's demeanor changes instantly, no longer a professor, but a doctor.

"Migraines? Boring diagnosis. Experience something similar. Could try treatment on you; not sure of reaction with human physiology. Maybe not boring. Intriguing experiment."

If Thane hadn't seen her wincing, or the pile of sick in the corner, he might have said that Shepard had fabricated something else for Mordin to think about.

* * *

The pain blinds.

Shepard's scars pulse in rhythm with waves of hurt and nausea from the migraine, her whole head a hotbed of misery; she can barely remember waving a goodbye to Wrex along with a promise that she'd be back in the next day or two with Grunt in tow. He probably hears her. If he doesn't, well, she'll explain the next time that she's down on his planet.

What would this feel like if she had never had a migraine before? Maybe she'd think that the spots shimmering in her vision were the Cerberus tech backfiring, her brain rejecting the wires and cords and metal plates holding her together. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't a migraine at all.

Three sharp knocks on her door make Shepard's brain feel like it is bursting.

"Mordin is at the door, Shepard." EDI's voice is usually soothing, but today, Shepard wishes that she had a corporeal form to hit. Shepard waves in acknowledgment, and EDI opens the door.

"Shepard." Mordin's attempt at whispering is enough to make Shepard open her eyes even if she instantly regrets it. "Understand loud noises can exacerbate symptoms. Will be quick."

He is at her bedside in moments, holding something that looks enough like medi-gel to make Shepard skeptical. "I don't think-"

With a soft _whir,_ a nozzle appears from the packet. Briefly, Shepard is worried about where the nozzle is supposed to go. "Nasal spray. Should help. You'll feel better in a matter of hours," Mordin says, and Shepard does her best to clamor for it in a dignified way. She gives herself the medicine, and it is only afterwards that Mordin says, "Or could have allergic reaction. Can't be sure. Works for me. Might want to spend some time close to the med bay. Maybe eat something. Don't sleep for a few hours."

Mordin is gone as quickly as he appeared. The spray feels like a miracle; the worst of the pain dissipates within minutes, and its absence has Shepard gasping with relief. She hauls herself out of bed with great effort, not really wanting to sleep but not interested in moving either.

He'd left so fast that Shepard hadn't even gotten to say thank you, but maybe he wouldn't have wanted her to until she was certain she wasn't going to die from his treatment.

That would _really_ take the cake, she thinks with a soft chuckle as the elevator taxis her down. The smirk on her face doesn't hurt, and if she ever gets the chance (and this doesn't kill her), Shepard will nominate Mordin for sainthood. The blinding pain has quieted to the dull ache that Shepard associates with the day after a migraine, but it's almost comforting, like the soreness of a well-worked out muscle.

Her smirk has split into a full grin by the time the elevator opens up to the crew quarters, because after all of these years, she still hasn't gotten over how much of alien tech (or medicine, for that matter) is like magic. Shepard's so caught up in it that she doesn't notice Thane standing in front of her, holding a cup of something steaming. He steps out of the way as she moves forward, but not quite fast enough, bumping Thane's shoulder with her own and somehow managing not to send the beverage clattering to the floor.

"Apologies, Shepard." She's quite certain that she's imagining it, but Thane sounds almost sheepish as well as startled, his eyes mirroring a deer in the headlights somehow even more than usual.

"Not at all. If anyone should be sorry, it's me. I wasn't paying attention at all." The scent of the drink wafts up to Shepard's nose, and she raises an eyebrow in curiosity. "Tea?"

"Yes. My wife…" Thane's voice trails off, and Shepard knows he'll be back momentarily, once he's through with whatever memory has just possessed him. "It might sound foolish to you, but my wife always claimed that a warm drink could cure all but the most serious of injuries, although the mess does lack the ingredients needed for me to make it _authentically_." His inflection on _authentically_ hangs in the air like a joke, poking fun at her _bánh mì thịt nướng_ from not so long ago.

"_Well_. If someone hadn't been so adamant that food existed only for the sake of utility, perhaps there would have been more of a selection for you."

Thane half-smiles. "Be that as it may, you have saved me the trip up the elevator. I simply wanted to return the favor of cultural exchange, or whatever you might call it, and perhaps assist with the head pain."

She sips the drink after he hands it to her: ginger, lemon, and something else that she thinks most people probably wouldn't put into tea on earth even though she can't put her finger on what exactly it is.

"Your wife was smart. You're sure she wasn't a Vietnamese human?"

"Vietnamese?" Thane's brow furrows, the translator failing.

Shepard walks to the closest table and sits, stretching her legs out as far as she can manage while still cradling the tea in her hands. "People from Vietnam. Where my mom was from. Where I got this stunning, dark complexion." Shepard punctuates by gesturing to her face. "Vietnamese are big on tea, even if not as much as some others."

Shepard had promised herself she'd be more forthcoming with information about herself on this rebirth, even if not to Cerberus. She didn't have to trust them with her history and her life, but her crew were different. The only person on board that she might not be totally honest with was Miranda. The aliens, in particular, had no reason to use any harmless information against her, and there is nothing left on Earth that could be used as ammunition anyways.

"I never asked my wife where she learned her love for it. I suppose that I always assumed that she just liked how it tasted," Thane says pensively.

"As good a reason as any." Shepard pauses, drinking long from the mug that is finally cool enough for her to drink rather than sip. "I don't know if I've heard you mention your wife before."

"You'll forgive me if I abstain from it further. My wife is dead. That is all there is to know."

Shepard dips her head. "Of course." The detachment is cold, but unsurprising; Thane has been a killer for years, before, during, and after any family connections he may have made and broken or lost. Her head pulses, not with pain, but with a question: _what was her name?_

She swallows the question, unsure why it rose to her tongue with such urgency, but there is no time to contemplate it, because for once, Thane is not content to let silence hang in the air.

"I apologize if it is too forward, but if your course of action is still to return to Tuchanka, for Grunt, I would like to accompany you in the ground party."

The request admittedly knocks Shepard a little off kilter. "I have no objection if you have a good reason."

Thane's dark eyes feel as though they are looking through her, but perhaps that is just the intensity of a widower and an assassin wrapped in one being. "Tuchanka reminds me of what Rakhana might have felt like. And…" Thane is always serious, but when he continues, it is just a _little less_ serious. "I was also the only one with enough awareness to notice Uvenk. I would like to see what should happen if he were to try to follow through on some kind of coup."

Shepard barks a laugh at that. "Wrex would have him flayed and displayed as a flag before we ever got our hands on him, but I can't argue with your performance. Tomorrow, we recover – I'm not sure what coming down from this medicine Mordin gave me is going to do to my body – but the day after, you, Grunt, and I will go deal with his… puberty."

Shepard says the last word with great pain in her voice. Thane laughs softly. "We have both lost much, Shepard. Surely seeing an adolescent into adulthood will be something of a relief."

Raising her eyebrows as high into her hairline as she can manage and shaking her head, Shepard downs the rest of the tea. "Maybe if Grunt was a drell kid and not a krogan born in an oversized bean full of water, I'd agree with you."

"I do think if the salarian medicine were going to make you sick, it would have done so already," Thane says, and Shepard nods.

"Whether it was Mordin's doing or not, I do feel like I could sleep." She stands, taking care of the mug before looking back to Thane. "Thank you for the tea. If no one hears from me in the next six hours, send up Chakwas. I should go."

"Shepard." Thane's goodbye is always simple but sincere. He disappears into life support as the door to the elevator closes.


End file.
